Thanksgiving Week

Well, we weren't sure if we were going to have to rearrange our Thanksgiving Day plans because again Jack wasn't feeling good on Tuesday. He even had a mild fever. Thankfully, the fever was gone by the next morning and as the day continued he felt better and better. I let my family know about Jack and they said to still come on Thanksgiving. 

Wednesday morning I woke up early because my friend Whitney was coming by to get Cocoa and take to get fixed. We were surprised a few hours later when Whitney called to say that apparently Cocoa was a BOY! His male parts were just hiding under his fur and just not hanging out as far. All the boys wanted to change his name after finding out he was a boy but I think Cocoa is good for boy or girl. I think so far I have won the battle to keep the name of Cocoa. Either way, at least he is fixed and actually we lucked out because recovery for boys is easier than girls.

Everyone was feeling good on Thanksgiving Day. Curtis got up a little early to get the turkey cooking. Then I got out of bed but we decided to let the kids sleep in. Curtis had to sear the turkey for the first 30 min at 500 degrees but then turned it down to 350 to cook the remaining time. After he got the turkey cooking at 350 and after he cleaned up the kitchen from the turkey mess I got to work on making the frog eye salad. Melissa was the one that requested that I make it but unfortunately they decided to stay home on Thanksgiving, as did Tamara's family. 

While making the salad Curtis turned on the original Miracle on 34th Street movie on Disney+ on his laptop. He proceeded to do dishes as well. After I was done with the salad and the movie was over we moved to the front room to play some Mexican Train on the floor. By this time I think all of the kids were awake and watching TV in the family room. Our 2nd round of Mexican Train started out great for both of us but then we were both drawing tile after tile. We were getting close to picking up every domino when we decided to pause so I could go shower. We never finished the game 😆 In the last hour before going over to my grandma's while Curtis was carving the turkey up I pulled out our portable ping pong set and put it on our kitchen table. We bought it in the summer of 2019 but didn't use it much because our table was smaller then. Now that we have a longer and wider table I decided it would be fun to give it a try. And we certainly had fun with it! So much fun that the kids took it to grandma's house and set it up on the pool table downstairs also.

I didn't think to get a photo when he was carving the turkey but here's Curtis making the gravy.

We ended up having Thanksgiving with my grandma, my parents, my great aunt Joyce and my brother Stillman's family.  All of the food was great!

After eating dinner we watched some home videos that Curtis and I had transferred from the old video camera. We watched Christmas and other activities from 1990-1991. I love watching old family videos and I'm glad we were able to get them transferred. Later, we celebrated Stillman's birthday, the big 40. 

We ended the night with playing some Skip Bo, which I hadn't played in a long time. It was fun. Since we had plans to get together again on Saturday we left our food at grandma's. And then Laverne gave us our Christmas presents early. They were homemade ornaments. We had to open them early so that we can hang them on our tree.

Friday morning I got up before everyone else and decided to go do some Black Friday shopping. I bought a few things and took them to grandma's to hide. Most of our shopping has been done online this year. Curtis and the kids cleaned up the house while I was gone so that we could decorate for Christmas when I got back. We got all of our inside decor put up, including our tree. This year we put it in the family room.  Later that evening we all watched the latest episode of The Mandalorian (a Star Wars show on Disney+). Then we watched some Christmas episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos.

Saturday morning Nikki had to get up to go to work at 9:30. However, she learned that she didn't actually need to be there until 10:30. She was upset that she didn't get an extra hour of sleep. Oh well. Meanwhile Curtis and Garrett were outside hanging Christmas lights on the roof and I was trying to figure out what to wear to go shotgun shooting. Stillman decided to have a shotgun shooting party to help celebrate his 40th birthday. Curtis, Jack and I rode over with my parents to the shooting range at 10:30am to get there by 11:00. Garrett didn't want to go and stayed home to babysit the girls. All of Stillman's in laws came from Michelle's family except little kids. Nathan and his stepdad came as well. I was able to try Melissa's hand gun and that thing is very powerful. It kicks back so hard that it hurts our hand. Melissa wasn't there because she had a headache. I did try one shotgun and those were loud and powerful as well. I decided I wanted to just shoot the easier guns that don't kick back so I mostly shot my dad's rifles. Nathan also had a tiny handgun that all of us ladies liked shooting. It was fun but cold. We stayed mostly warm until about the last half hour. The wind picked up a little and we started to get cold. However, Stillman and all of Michelle's family stayed longer to shoot some more.

Nathan let me borrow these extra ear protectors. It was great for awhile but then it hurt my ears because I still had ear plugs in my ears and because of my sunglasses.

The original plan was to meet at grandma's after shooting was over and eat Thanksgiving day leftovers while watching the BSU game. Unfortunately the game got cancelled due to Covid. Stillman's family decided to go out to eat. After we went home and changed out of our layers of winter clothes, we took our family over to grandma's to eat with Dad, Laverne and grandma. We ended up watching the BSU game from 2007 when they were in the Fiesta Bowl. After Stillman and his two older boys came over I didn't feel like just sitting there watching the game so I pulled out Rummikub and several of us played. We later switched to Mexican Train while the kids watched Back to the Future downstairs. Michelle wanted to spend time with her brother so she and Stillman had split up for the evening. It was a fun day and evening! We didn't even leave to go home until 10pm. Thankfully, we had church at home the next day so we didn't have to wake up early.